November 20, 2010

Bill Lueders's Isthmus article is subtitled "The Triumph of Stupidity." He asks UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin how people could vote the way they did, and when Franklin answers "They're pretty damn stupid," he says "Thank you, professor... That's the answer I was looking for."

Frankly, it's an answer embraced by many people I know. One of my Isthmus colleagues sent me a study showing that Dane County, which bucked the trends on Election Day, is by far the most educated county in the state. "When conservatives cut support for education," she mused, "they do so to keep people dumb and their own interests in power."

Welcome to my world: Dane County, Wisconsin, home of people who tell themselves they are the smart people and those who disagree with them must certainly be dumb. They don't go through the exercise of putting themselves in the place of someone who thinks differently from the way they do. But how would it feel to be intelligent, informed, and well-meaning and to think what conservatives think? Isn't that the right way for an intelligent, informed, and well-meaning person to understand other people? If you short circuit that process and go right to the assumption that people who don't agree with you are stupid, how do you maintain the belief that you are, in fact, intelligent, informed, and well-meaning?

What is liberal about this attitude toward other people? You wallow in self-love, and what is it you love yourself for? For wanting to shower benefits on people... that you have nothing but contempt for.

If we are stupid, that changes nothing about our rights under a democratic republic. Our representatives are chosen by majority vote of the people, not just the "smart" people. It was a terrible oversight by the founders. Our living constitution should be amended to fix this. Let's vote on it.

That was a powerful post, Professor. The University community feels safer behind the walls built of a stronghold of group-think. Only a more powerful truth can break down those walls. That is why they refuse to listen to others views...for fear they will hear the more powerful truth.

Bankrupt California bucked the trend reelecting every one of it's disastrous legislators, and very few people around the world think it was intelligence winning out. If you think California is going the right direct then you must be highly "educated".

We all know the saying "if you're conservative at 20, you have no heart. If you're liberal at 40, you have no head." There's a lot of truth to that saying, but there's a secondary truth that is usually overlooked--many conservatives were liberal in their youth, whereas very few liberals were ever conservative.

As a result, conservatives have a much better understanding of liberals and liberalism; I've never come across a liberal who had the slightest clue who conservatives are, what they believe or why they believe it.

There's another truism about life--you have to learn a lot before you can understand just how much you don't know. That's why most wise men, gurus, etc. claim to know nothing.

You put these two things together and what do you have? It is the ignorance of liberals that makes them so certain of their intellectual superiority. Their simplistic thinking that convinces them of their subtlety, their narrow horizons that convince them of their open-mindedness.

They simply don't know enough to critique other ideas and values. They assume they are smarter because they are dumber.

A conundrum I'm forced to face as a California voter. Electing Brown, re-electing Boxer, and defeating prop. 23, the only conclusion I can come to is that California voters are dumb, dumb, dumb. Does that make it a classic conservative explanation?

How much does anybody want to bet that, if any of those 'dumb' voters went back to voting Lefty any time in the rest of this century, their IQ would suddenly rise about 40 points?

The Lefties are a really sad lot. They don't dare have an heretical thought and have to perpetually tell themselves and each other how they're the only enlightened, intelligent beings on the planet. As everybody else moves away from the Left Coast and the Northeast Corridor because of the excessive taxation and inimical business climate, will they even notice?

Well, turn it around. When conservatives wonder why liberals think the way they do, they (conservatives) tend to short-circuit the analysis and conclude that liberals are simply fools.

The big challenge for both sides is simply to consider the possibility that the other side is sincere. For liberals, that means (among other things) eschewing the "they cling to guns and religion" style of analysis and opening up to the notion that the conservative ideology can be both sincerely humane and internally consistent. For conservatives, it means (among other things) throwing out the "they want government control over everything" assumption and believing that compassion for fellow humans really is the driving force behind liberalism.

After that, it can all become a respectful discussion of policies, which the liberals will lose, of course.

That's one of those trick SAT-type questions that lawprofs like to throw out -- the 'what word doesn't fit' type. And the word is -- liberal!

That tag has been a misnomer for some time. Try "lefty" or since we're describing the really smart half of America, we can use French: dirigiste. They are the folks with the solutions; we are the folks with the problems. And, no matter whether their solutions fix what ails us, we should just take the medicine. They know better -- you can tell them by their training, list of degrees, credentials and pedigree.

Just as liberal is a mismomer, it's not quite right to say that the lefties have contempt for the common man. Latin gets it better -- well meaning condescension of the noblesse oblige sort is more the idea. They may get impatient when the natives refuse to take their medicine, but it's mostly the paternal sort of impatience.

But the best part of the whole thing is that another word also describes that sort of person -- loser, which is what they tend to do when the natives figure out what they're all about and decide to vote them out.

They're are heartless at the core because at the core they are not interested in other people, only in themselves and continuous preening with their 'correct' political views.

A classic example: Mormon congregations (and no doubt other 'conservative' denominations could tell similar stories) have a system to care for their poor, on their own without any government help. The members fast one day a month and donate the proceeds of the money saved (and more when able) to a fund that takes care for the rest of the month, of the needs of the unfortunate.

I know of one congregation whose more affluent members recently got together and bought a fellow congregant's home to keep it out of foreclosure.

But because the Mormons don't believe in gay marriage, to the average liberal they are thereby obviously hateful, horrible people.

And this kind of thinking is what passes for "intelligence" in counties like Dane.

Welcome to my world: Dane County, Wisconsin, home of people who tell themselves they are the smart people and those who disagree with them must certainly be dumb. They don't go through the exercise of putting themselves in the place of someone who thinks differently from the way they do.

I consider myself a liberal, and this isthmus article makes me think that the writer and pol-sci professor are stupid. For a professor of political science at a world-class university, one of the most respected public universities in this country to be so lazy--and insulting--in his analysis of the electorate is embarrassing.

I believe there are far too many people that are uniformed about the structure of government and of substantive issues. The recent pew research poll confirms that. It found that only 46% of the public knew that the GOP won the House and but not the Senate in the most recent election. And substantively, only 16% of the public knows that more than half of the loans made under TARP have been paid back. However, I don't know what percentage of actual voters are uninformed on procedural and substantive issues and I don't make assumptions about what political party they're voting for. To do otherwise is to generalize to a degree that renders an argument completely unpersuasive.

To Althouse's last point, about giving benefits to people you have contempt for, I don't believe most liberals have contempt for their fellow Americans. At least not the liberals I surround myself with. But even if they did, I think the principle is more important than the people that benefit from that principle. For example, I would hope that someone that actually valued equality and fairness would support an issue like same sex marriage even if they hated gay people. Althouse said similar things a few weeks ago when discussing the bloggers meeting at the White House. She had said that rights don't depend on whether you like the people that receive them. I believe the same should be true for any policy decisions being made by liberals or conservatives.

@ Tim Maguire. I enjoyed that analysis. You sound like me 10 years ago. But lately I have found myself thinking along third option, which is that we all owe our next breath to a beneficient God, and therefore showing practical mercy to others overrides ideology. We need to see beyond financial security issues, not that there really is much financial security available these days.

Antony, you're missing or misstating the issue when you say "I would hope that someone that actually valued equality and fairness would support an issue like same sex marriage even if they hated gay people."

Either that or you're demonstrating the very ignorant presumptive thinking I was decrying.

To most liberals, to oppose the broad social policy of gay marriage is, ipso facto, to hate a gay person.

Because liberals believe themselves to be smart, well-intentioned, good people because of their political beliefs, then it stands to reason that anyone who disagrees with them would have to be stupid, bad-intentioned or evil, or all of the above. Most of them cannot comprehend the concept of legitimate policy differences, which is too complicated. Far easier to demonize those one disagrees with. It should be noted that other groups are sometimes guilty of this as well, but not as frequently as among liberals, at least from my own personal observation.

The good professor's post should be memorialized in stone. We need a monument to open mindedness. And if a blogger's words have not yet been so inscribed, it would be fitting for Althouse to the first.

Bob Ellison,Most conservatives and libertarians of my acquaintance believe that many liberals want to make things better and are unwilling to admit that they are "taking away" liberty with their proposals. There are other liberals -not small in number - who do think that they know best and that liberty is not paramount. I am not sure whether those in the second category are fools or not. After all, proposing to reduce liberty to make things better has a bad track record. I have tried to understand but cannot grasp how this second group of liberals can be so blind (or foolish). Unfortunately, the so-called elite liberals are mostly in this second class. (just FYI, I work with mostly double Ivy grads in NYC.)

Wanting to help people you have contempt for is *proof* of virtue. It can't be altruism otherwise.

People who want to help people they like or have an attachment to are behaving selfishly. Particularly if the people you want to help are close to you such as parents or children.

That is why government is necessary to virtue. Without that buffer between the good you do and the people who receive it your virtue is always suspect.

BTW, Ayn Rand included this thesis in Atlas Shrugged, which I skimmed (OMG that woman is long winded) and when I read the statement that people who helped people they loved weren't being "good" but were being bad people I scoffed. It was *so* ridiculous that how could she smear her opponents that way? Who would believe it?

Since then, however, I've heard exactly that sentiment expressed seriously and I'm always shocked, but not surprised anymore and I don't doubt that people really think that way. (Once it was even Althouse, though she wasn't making the argument but was simply suggesting the question - I think it may be another case of what sort of things commonly said and commonly heard in the academic environment.)

Thick as a Brick. Jethro Tull said it all in that no one understands because they are all dumb as rocks.

I never understood how people cannot get over the Kum-ba-yah phase and realize that other cultures do have different logic patterns in their reasoning. A=B means B=A may be true in math, but it does not follow with people. And don't get me started about the fringe ones.

Quayle said: "To most liberals, to oppose the broad social policy of gay marriage is, ipso facto, to hate a gay person."

For the sake of full disclosure, as I said, I'm a liberal, and I'm also a gay person.

I certainly don't think that everyone that opposes same-sex marriage hates gay people. President Obama opposes gay marriage and I don't think he hates gay people. Many of my parents friends (I'm 25) oppose gay marriage and I don't think they hate me, and they don't hate my parents for supporting gay marriage and vice versa. I honestly don't think the world is as polarized as everyone makes it out to be.

Here is the quote from Althouse that I was referring to, and with which I agree: "Your position on the rights of others should not depend on whether they are your friends. That's not the way law works. People have rights whether you care about them or not. And rights don't spring into existence because you care about the people who want them."

They only use "they're dumb" part of the time. When confronted with a conservative of obvious intelligence and poise such as Lynne Cheney or Eric Cantor, they fall back on the "they're diabolically evil" explanation....Oprah has an enormous amount of influence on her followers, but only fans of Glen Beck and Limbaugh are described as being manipulated.

It is interesting that Ann chooses to live in Madison and partake in all of its great public amenities like bike trails, near by nature preserves and arts facilities. She also seems to like the business climate in Madison where small businesses continue to open and thrive when other more conservative areas are experiencing a sharp economic decline.

Ann seems to like to bitch about the great community she draws pleasure from. Many people in Madison pitch in and do volunteer work to make Madison great. Does Ann and Meade ever give back or do they just expect government to pay for their bike trails that they then turn around and condemn? Ann and Meade get off your lazy free loading asses and go help design and raise contributions for some new park benches at your neighborhood park!

It does seem that the most successful communities and states in this country tend to be blue. I would also bet if you did a study showing the biggest decline in property values over the past five years it would be red areas like Waukesha County that have been hurt most while blue ares like Madison have seen very little decline in value. But that is just the market talking. Never mind.

I think the problem for some liberals, such as Lueders, I suppose, is that they cannot countenance that their point of view might be out of the mainstream. Their view is the Correct View, and if voters don't support it, it's not that their view is wrong, it's the voters are too stupid to realize what they are voting for.

"For conservatives, it means (among other things) throwing out the "they want government control over everything" assumption and believing that compassion for fellow humans really is the driving force behind liberalism."

I think that I disagree, Bob, that conservatives don't *mostly* understand that liberals are trying to show how much they care and trying to be good people and that most of them genuinely want to be good people by caring and helping others.

Government seldom if ever is effective at doing that, however. And few people seem to be motivated to actually test to see if what they've done or advocated actually helped anyone. The good results are simply assumed based on good intentions and if the problem isn't solved whatever was done just needs to be done *more* or *harder*.

The willingness to give up liberty for safety (physical or material) is nothing new. Neither is the truth that someone who gives up liberty for safety gets neither of them.

" For example, I would hope that someone that actually valued equality and fairness would support an issue like same sex marriage even if they hated gay people."

Well, now, let's just examine this statement as a prime example of liberal-think. The implication is: if they don't support same sex marriage, then they must either hate gay people or not value equality and fairness.

I don't suppose it ever occurs to liberals then that my opposition to same-sex marriage has nothing to do with hating gay people (I don't) or not valuing equality and fairness (I do). There is in fact another possibility, namely, that I believe gay people should be free to live whatever lifestyle they want to live but that society has no obligation to also proactively endorse their lifestyle and to confer certain benefits to perpetuate that lifestyle.

It's not surprising that areas heavily dependent on government employment are doing better than areas that are not so dependent. Isn't that where we're told most of the spendulous was spent? Paying government salaries?

"...many conservatives were liberal in their youth, whereas very few liberals were ever conservative."

I'm one of those few, if few we are.

I was raised in a Republican family--all of whom remain Republican--and I registered as a Republican when I came of age. I voted for Jerry Ford against Carter in the first election in which I could vote, and I voted for Reagan in 1980.

Then, I started to experience more of the world and saw that it did not fit with the picture of it that had been presented to me by my family and via conservative dogma.

Once I left the family home this shifting of my perspective--as I viewed the events of the world unmoored from the the frame of reference within which I had been reared--accelerated. Before Reagan's run for reelection I had switched parties and moved away from my previous views.

As the decades have passed, I am only more convinced that my previous beliefs were unfounded, based on received (and often untrue) ideas about the world, and that the reality of the world all the more warrants my shift leftward.

What is liberal about this attitude toward other people? You wallow in self-love, and what is it you love yourself for? For wanting to shower benefits on people... that you have nothing but contempt for.

I have no problem with progressives finding ways to block conservatives from benefiting. That's what cons do to the left, in any event. At some point, the left should find a way to introduce bills that prevent SSI and Medicare benefits from accruing to conservative demographics. Not that they'd state it openly, but do it underhandedly, the way the right's been doing for so long. And anyway, since this would result in cuts in government expenditures and "increased" self-reliance, the cons should be all for it.

Good job foregoing the opportunity to refudiate the assertions regarding comparative education levels, BTW. I can see why you'd prefer not to have that fight.

Nobody won. Check out your US representatives' disclosure statements. Those are some rich elites on both sides of the isle. Republicans won some seats, and it will be better but I think the system works best with a divided Congress. Republicans had their chance under Bush and they blew it. The Dems had their chance with Obama and they blew it. Now the people will still get screwed, but it will be a slower, gentler screwing. Both parties suck and there's not much we can do about it.

As the decades have passed, I am only more convinced that my previous beliefs were unfounded, based on received (and often untrue) ideas about the world, and that the reality of the world all the more warrants my shift leftward.

I'm not sure that no such truths exist, but some people sure bullshit their way through a lot of make-believe and mythology in trying to come up with the kind of easy to sell narratives that fit those "truths".

My dad's family was Republican but not the socially conservative kind. Social conservatism is an ill advised attempt to shoehorn an inherently mobile, restless and active country into norms that fit places that value communities more than they do individuals, and cooperation more than self-reliance. The attempt to paper over that gaping inconsistency forms the central lie of American conservatism.

If you read all of my comments you'll see I've made it clear that I don't believe opposition to gay marriage means someone hates gay people. You're projecting on me, and it's unfair, speaking of fairness.

I do believe that same-sex marriage is a matter of equal treatment and fairness. I'm not sure how it can be considered fair and equal treatment for the government to be obligated to "proactively support" a heterosexual "lifestyle" but not a gay lifestyle without a justifiable reason for denying the same treatment to gays and lesbians. You could argue that you don't have to treat some people fairly and equally, but I want a reason why. I've never been convinced by the reasons I've been given, most of which are rooted in religious opposition, which the government should have no business using as a legitimate reason.

I've been told by smart educated people - people like professional journalists and political science professors - that that sort of thinking is called logical fallacy or, in Latin, "circulus in probando."

But back on the farm, where some of us come from long lines of undereducated problem-solvers, we use less educated language. We'd probably just say it something like, "That pointy-headed professional journalist sure does hem and haw, back and fill, beat around the bush, dance around his own questions, fudge and mudge, and shilly shally."

It only leads us to the conclusion that the professor/journalist thinks his own B.O. don't stink none and therefore we might oughta be extra skeptical about the slick feller he's telling us we'd be smart to vote for.

But how would it feel to be intelligent, informed, and well-meaning and to think what conservatives think? Isn't that the right way for an intelligent, informed, and well-meaning person to understand other people?

A good and fair question. And liberal candidates are going to keep getting smacked so long as that's the fallback analysis.

But substitute "what liberals think" and I see no especially different outcome either. They're stupid, or they're evil, or they're emotional and afraid.

I live in a red state, so I'm used to hearing the other perspective, where "liberal" is used as a common pejorative; it suffices on its own, no other argument necessary.

the left should find a way to introduce bills that prevent SSI and Medicare benefits from accruing to conservative demographics. Not that they'd state it openly, but do it underhandedly, the way the right's been doing for so long.

You can't provide a singular example of the right cutting anything for the left.

Obviously Meade has a lot of time on his hands. He also claims to be a conservative. Does Meade volunteer any of his ample free time to make Madison a better place? Is he happy to see taxes pay for our great amenities? Or is Meade just happy to let other people do the heavy lifting so he and Ann can enjoy living here?

Smacking around teachers is the way to go. People are tired of their bullshit. Really the teachers union bullshit.

I hope so.

Right on cue:

“American Federation of Teachers president Rhonda ‘Randi’ Weingarten has issued a statement slamming proposed cuts from the congressional deficit commission for not pushing shared sacrifice among the wealthy, but an AFT spokesman has told The Examiner that Weingarten will not be taking a paycut from the total $428,284 she received in salary and benefits during fiscal year 2010.”

Hey just because Meade does all that arty stuff doesn't mean he enjoy's. He would much rather be eating a hot dog and watching the Reds lose another game than walking though the park taking pictures of dogs urinating.

"Hey I am for anything that cuts teachers salaries. They get paid to(sic) much as it is."

My brother--a conservative--was a high school teacher in Florida for 14 years. When he left teaching, he was making only $30,100.00 a year. (This was in his final year; the previous year, his 13th year, he made only $28,200.00.)

I don't know what the norm is nationwide, but this is hardly "too much" pay.

(My brother is one of those conservatives who fails to draw connections between his own real life experiences and political realities...that's why he's still a conservative!)

"even though Texas’ budget deficit is very similar to California’s, the Lone Star State is still in a better fiscal position. Texas has better credit ratings and nearly $9 billion banked in the Rainy Day Fund. We also haven’t yet sliced our budget by about a quarter, as California did last year. (And California is losing $52 million a day because state leaders missed their deadline to pass a budget and still can’t agree.)"

Not to mention that Texas has been adding jobs and population while they are running from the blue California with one of the main destinations being red Texas.

Interesting the sort of hate involved in the idea that a conservative might enjoy elite sorts of pursuits such as enjoying nature instead of raping her, conservation (oh my, what's the root of that word?) and taking care of the Earth. Good food and fine wine and intelligent music...

How many heads would pop if Meade goes to a Library?

"Those people" don't do stuff like that. They are ignorant hicks and ought to know their place. All those taxes paid for parks and libraries are supposed to benefit liberals and progressives, dammit!

Robert tell him to move to New York City ao he can clean up. There he could make a lot more and molest a couple of kids and go to the "rubber room" for years and get paid for doing jsck-shit.

Plus he only worked half a year. If he got another job for the rest of the year at the same "low" rate he would be making $60,000 a year. That's not garage mahal six figures but it is nothing to sneeze at.

Speaking of farms and stupidity; those stoopid giants sure got schooled by the farmboys from Dallas didn't they? The stoopid drunks from the big Easy will be in town for their ass whooping on thanksgiving.

The average teacher salary is about 60K for 9 months which equals 80K annualized. This does not include incredibly generous benefits, that virtually no private industry jobs match. They are hardly underpaid. In my community, drop out rates are around 50%.

I don't know any private company that could fail 50% of the time delivering it's primary product and continue to pay it's employees anything at all. It's called failure and it's not supposed to be lucrative.

Trooper York said, regarding my brother, a former high school teacher:

"...he only worked half a year."

He worked nine months of the year, and in those nine months he worked more than just 8 hours a day. In addition to the time in the classroom, he had to meet with students, conduct after school help sessions, prepare lesson plans, grade homework and tests and papers, etc. etc.

He did have to work summers to make ends meet; he became a lawn man, and he made so much money doing that he left teaching to do it full time! (My father had been a restaurant manager and my mother worked with him hiring and scheduling the wait staff; she hired a number of teachers who had to work as waiters/waitresses to supplement their pay from teaching.)

The view that our teachers are paid too much indicates to me that we don't value teaching as a profession or a process, and even that we view those charged with educating our children with hidden contempt, that they don't deserve to be well paid or that they're somehow losers for not working in more "respectable" or remunerative jobs.

Well then we should put together a bipartisan Presidential commision. From that we can figure what are the best government programs to enact those universal truths. It may even require a Department of Universal Truths and a cabinet level position.

What do the Europeans say on this matter? They always do these sort of things better than we do.

California has cut it's budget, because it had no choice and it's with those cuts that it is still so far in deficit. Texas will have no problem getting out of it's deficit, because it a function of the general economy, and they are much more better fiscally.

California was in deficit when the economy was great. It will not fix itself. It will go bankrupt, and ask the rest of you, including Texas to bail it out.

"The average teacher salary is about 60K for 9 months which equals 80K annualized. This does not include incredibly generous benefits, that virtually no private industry jobs match. They are hardly underpaid."

What does that mean, "if annualized?" You mean, if they worked 12 months? But they don't, and given all extra hours they work outside class time, (as I mentioned in my previous post), one could also say they're actually making less the average you cite of $60K.

What are the "incredibly generous benefits" you speak of? I don't doubt some school districts may offer teachers good benefits, but my brother didn't experience them.

Again, I don't know what the norm is nationwide, but I hardly think our public school teachers are awash in excess discretionary income.

It is no accident that people who vote leftist and who are convinced that those who disagree with them are stupid, are also the greatest consumers of alternative medicine, often oppose vaccination and have the greatest interest in magical phenomena like crystal healing. They live by magical thinking. If the result is good, the process must work. Those who understand that results are not always predictable and that people with good intentions often screw up, tend to be conservative.

Well, in NJ here is how it works:Zero towards their health insurance benefits. Family health insurance benefits that run anywhere from $18,000 to $24,000 a year that the taxpayers pay for that teacher and their family from the day they're hired until the day they die - fully paid medical benefits.

this guy is a dick, but almost all of the conservative commenters on this blog and many others are just as closed-minded and unwilling to even try to understand much less acknowledge that a different perspective may be rational or possible.

Since you are using your brother anecdotally, let me compare with someone I know personally.

She is skilled, about equal to a teacher, works in a private compnay at about $60k salary. When the economy tanked, her company cut back on people and her 40 hour/week job was redefined to require 55 hours/ week, 12 months a year. No increase in pay. She gets no retirement, no sick pay, only 6 paid holidays, and pays half of her health insurance. Many of her fellow workers simply have no jobs at all now.

Here in L.A. despite the shrinking student enrollment, education spending, hiring and benefits have continued to rise dramatically.

Maybe your brother got a raw deal, or maybe he's just subject to the same as the average taxpayer. He doesn't appear to be similar to the average teacher, at least not around me.

It is no accident that people who vote leftist and who are convincedthat those who disagree with them are stupid, are also the greatest consumers of alternative medicine, often oppose vaccination and have the greatest interest in magical phenomena like crystal healing.

It is no accident that conservative radio talk shows a decade ago were sponsored by makers of quack baldness cures, "male enhancement" products, and Focus Factor, as well as colloidal silver. Implying that the typical listener was a balding forgetful limpdick. Fundamentalists were urged to buy "royal jelly" and other bee products.

If the proles vote for liberals, they are decent, salt-of-the-earth types. Like Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" painting. The rural farmer, standing up among the suit-and-tie crowd, letting his voice be heard.

But if the proles vote for conservatives, they are god-n-gun-clinging rednecks who drive over plantations of arugula on their four-wheelers, shoot at anything that moves, and form separatist militias.

Doesn't it occur to you that this post and most of the comments display the same baseless smugness and conceit the author is complaining about?

I'm a liberal and I will freely admit that a few liberals exhibit that kind of conceit. I don't approve of that no matter where it comes from.

Left or right, intelligent people can only have respect for those who are willing to consider the facts and reasoning by which others have arrived at their conclusions. In the absence of facts or credible reasoning, respect vanishes. Legitimately so.

"It is no accident that conservative radio talk shows a decade ago were sponsored by makers of quack baldness cures, "

This demonstrates that conservatives at least attempt to improve themselves, but they thankfully limit their quack cures to personal appearance, where as the left actually falls for quack cures to domestic and foreign policy ailments.

And yes, Obama actually is a Keynesian. It's like a policy version of royal jelly.

I pointed you to the sources of daily demonization. If you can't be bothered to check them out for 6 months to see that I'm correct, you're just another biased libtard. One who engages in demonization against conservatives.

Milwaukee emerged as America's fourth-most impoverished big city in 2009, as the Great Recession rippled across the city and state, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday.

Milwaukee's poverty rate reached 27%, up from 23.4% in the previous year. Only Detroit (36.4%), Cleveland (35%) and Buffalo (28.8%) had higher poverty rates among cities with populations greater than 250,000. Milwaukee was ranked 11th in 2008.

An estimated 158,245 Milwaukeeans lived in poverty last year. For a family of four with two adults and two children, the poverty threshold was an annual income of $21,954.

What's more, nearly 4 in 10 children in Milwaukee were considered poor, meaning an estimated 62,432 children lived in poverty last year, up from 49,952 in 2008.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat who is running for governor, said the poverty numbers "are unacceptable and should be of concern to everyone in the community and the state."

"They obviously are in part a result of the global economic downturn which has disproportionately affected lower incomes," he said. "But it has also sent lower middle-class people into poverty as well. It explains why we're looking so aggressive to create more jobs, tackle the issues of education, workforce development and transportation."

I'm certain that the salary for school teachers where I grew up is about what Cook says his brother got in Florida. I don't think it's anything about "south of the Mason Dixon" but about urban or rural. Schools are still the biggest single employer in the community but no one makes very much money, not like here where the school district is the 5th largest in the nation (IIRC) and the top salaries are well upward from 100K. Classroom teachers still may not make a fortune but this isn't a rich state.

The drop out rate and test scores are crap even though schools have huge sports stadiums and olympic swimming pools and neat-o technical interactive computer thingies with remote controls for each student in a classroom. (My reaction was... "Excuse me? You spent money on that?")

But even back in my home school district, small and poor and rural, people were all about passing bonds and property taxes on farmers who were barely making it (and certainly outnumbered, vote-wise) to build new gymnasiums, keep the sports teams going, and doing without an art teacher.

BUT you know? People are right about what they want. Even if I don't agree. The people up there in Minnesota are right that most everyone wanted more sports (even if they're not right about making other people pay for it) and the people/kids down here in New Mexico are absolutely rational while dropping out of school.

In any case where someone is tempted to moan that other people act contrary to their self-interest, the issue is actually not understanding what that self-interest is. Because people do not act contrary to their self-interest.

Someone decided what every school child and teenager must have and just assumed they were right about that. When 50% or even 10 or 20% drop out, then it's a good indication that someone was very wrong.

i was criticizing the guy who was calling conservatives stupid without trying to even conceptualize a reason why they might feel the way they do and immediately chalking their views up to their stupidity, as well as similar behavior on the part of conservatives

i didn't realize this was a stalinist party congress, where the party line of the blog comment thread must be applauded at every turn

Blogger Meade said...It only leads us to the conclusion that the professor/journalist thinks his own B.O. don't stink none and therefore we might oughta be extra skeptical about the slick feller he's telling us we'd be smart to vote for.

Of course anyone who posts here would have seen multiple examples of conservatives calling libtards stupid, commie etc so the verbal over-sight goes both ways. The question, which will be answered in a few short years, is did the slim majority vote against their own interests? The swings in belief have been known to happen before.

"...Dane County, which bucked the trends on Election Day, is by far the most educated county in the state."

It is odd that someone pounding his chest about how smart he is describes his county as educated. We all know what he means, for sure. But it is ironic that while engaging in an exercise to demonstrate his intellectual superiority he describes an inanimate geographic land mass as educated.

Re: "only 16% of the public knows that more than half of the loans made under TARP have been paid back" (11/20/10 10:56 AM):

No, you mean that 16% of the public has been successfully duped into believing some of the most ridiculous propaganda currently out there about the contemporary issues that organize much public attention, emotion, and energies.

Yeah, the people are really stupid. Republicans ran the House of Representatives 1995-2006 and the economy was great. The voters put the Democrats in charge of the House in 2006, and four years later they economy is shit. The obvious answer is that the Republicans wrecked the economy and we need more Democratic control of the House.

If you short circuit that process and go right to the assumption that people who don't agree with you are stupid, how do you maintain the belief that you are, in fact, intelligent, informed, and well-meaning?

One of the most galling aspects of the way liberals look down on the intelligence of anyone who doesn't agree with them is, whenever a liberal has second thoughts about anything that now aligns them with what people to their right were saying all along, he/she brags about their shift as yet another example of their superior intelligence, but they never apologize to the conservatives who, it turns out, were always right.

The best example of this phenomenon is the question of dealing with the USSR. Every Cold Warrior in the 70s and 80s had to heard ourselves described as troglodytes, morons, and warmongers. But now? Try to find a liberal who doesn't claim either they were cold warriors all along, and that they weren't inspired by Solidarity and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Do these people ever go back and make amends for all the things they said when detente and accommodation were the only positions for an "intelligent" person? Welfare reform is another issue of this type. Coming soon -- questioning the wisdom of allowing public employees to organize into unions.

The point being, liberalism is always the most intelligent position in the argument, even when they make a 180.

Of course anyone who posts here would have seen multiple examples of conservatives calling libtards stupid, commie etc so the verbal over-sight goes both ways.

Maybe so, but I don't recall even conservative pundits calling the voters dumb in 2008. Same voters, folks.

It's about health care. Democratic whining about them getting the blame for "Bush's economy" is beside the point. It's quite possible that a lot of voters who switched to the Republicans in '10, accounted for that and forgave Obama for the lousy economy for that reason. But they couldn't forgive the process by which Obamacare got passed, or the result. And the news since it passed just takes them farther and farther away from Obama's promises about it.

Meade believes that private charity and volunteering should provide for the less fortunate. But Meade, who has ample time on his hands can't find the energy to set a good example.

If you want to see some people who are not hypocrites drive down Williamson Street which is the most liberal area of liberal Madison. There are at least a hade dozen organizations that serve the less fortunate. These soup kitchens and shelters survive on their neighbors giving their money and volunteering their time. Ann and Meade should walk down that street and see people who actually walk the talk. But I guess for Meade it is probably just easier to just talk about private giving than to actually step up given that he is riding sweet on the Wisconsin taxpayer's dime.

"Well, turn it around. When conservatives wonder why liberals think the way they do, they (conservatives) tend to short-circuit the analysis and conclude that liberals are simply fools."

Not really. It's just that many of us have "been there, done that", when it comes to "liberal" ideas. We considered these ideas years ago, and eventually rejected them. Therefore, the fools are only the ones that we think are old enough to know better.

I did call 2008 voters stupid, by the way. We had awful choices, and I believe most were well-intentioned, but...well. Sorry. Electing Obama was stupid. And I'm not a Republican, but I don't mind being called stupid for voting straight Republican ticket here in the liberal-devastated state of Michigan. I'll take a big bowl of stupid, please.

(The Crypto Jew)Late to the game, sorry for any redundancy (ies).This, the “Voters is ‘Stoopit’” or “Blame the Consumer” idea is not confined to the Left. I think the Left is more prone to it, being enamoured of:1) The Leninist Vanguard Elite idea;2) The Technocratic Elite managing society; and3) The Credentialed Class running thingsSo it makes the Left/Liberals more susceptible to this kind of thinking. However, I’ve seen it on the Right, in the wake of the 1992, 1996, and 2008 Elections.

It’s difficult to accept that your side, lost to that “Guy.” YOU know that Guy is a, moron, cowboy, socialist, Kenyan (Hey Mick), how could everyone else NOT realize it? Then you blame the consumer for making a bad choice. It’s easier than thinking you’re guy was wrong, or a bad candidate, or had a weak campaign. The Right/Libertarian side, however, is more enamoured of individual choice and the “market of ideas” and so we tend to “snap out of it quicker” than the Left. If people don’t buy the Chevy Volt, we say, it’s not stupid consumers, it’s a stupid GM…so too, we must conclude, if the voters didn’t choose our guy, Bush ’41, Dole, or McCain, it becomes hard to simply blame the voters…we have to blame a stupid Bush, Dole, or McCain, just like we’d blame GM. It’s easier to blame the consumer when you think that 5-10% of the populace OUGHT to be guiding the other 90-95%.

And Denver, it’s rude, dood to come into someone’s house and then insult them….

In Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks states that the bohemian contempt for the bourgeious has now been completely adopted, along with other bohemian ideas, into the elite culture. I think he's right. They hated us before the election, and they'll hate us after.

(The Crypto Jew)Althouse has as the first two tags to this post "Bill Lueders" and "hypocrisy". Why is it unfair of me to point out Ann's and Meade's obvious hypocrisy?

Their “obvious hypocrisy”? I must have missed that obvious hypocrisy, tell me Denver do you know what Meade does with his free time? Get back to me when you can demonstrate Meade or Althouse spend their time clipping coupons, and eating bon-bons…also if you can get them to release their income taxes and then release yours, we’ll compare charitable deductions.

Denver said...Obviously Meade has a lot of time on his hands. He also claims to be a conservative.

Denver, you need to raise your stalking game. I've never claimed to be a conservative. I like to think of myself as a conservative liberal.

Does Meade volunteer any of his ample free time to make Madison a better place?

Don't you know, Denver? You seem to think you do.

Is he happy to see taxes pay for our great amenities? Or is Meade just happy to let other people do the heavy lifting so he and Ann can enjoy living here? I smell a hypocrite.

It's true I live really well. Better than I deserve.

So, besides paying all my taxes (In fact, in 2007 and 2008, it turned out I overpaid my taxes. But that's another story.), to give back, I help out a little here... and here... and I used to help out here.

But you're right, Denver, I should do more. After the holidays I plan to start helping out here.

So instead of stalking me, let me invite you to email me and, if you want, you and I could do some volunteer work together. I'm serious.

(@Synova, bagoh20, Trooper York, Big Gov't Trickling Down on You, Darcy, and Joe: Thanks for the friendly and humorous defenses.)

"My critique of Ann and Meade is no more harsh than hers of Bill Lueders."

Harsh isn't baseless.

Did Lueders not write what he was quoted as writing? Did Lueders lie about what Franklin said? The quote/paraphrase of an email was unattributed but said to be a personal experience. So in all, three examples were given of persons who answer their own questions about other people in the world who disagree with their political opinions with "they're just stupid."

Thus - basis.

Your personal attacks and criticisms were without basis. Very different.

You were just making shit up since you know nothing other than Althouse's occupation and that's not hypocrisy when no one is seriously claiming, and certainly Althouse is not claiming that Government funding of higher education is not legitimate.

What it all is, is irony.

Imagine that.

Althouse says that liberals in her city seem to blindly judge conservatives in a particular way and then you arrive to demonstrate.

How do you, Denver, maintain the belief that you are, in fact, intelligent, informed, and well-meaning? What do you do?

Being right 50 times in a row, doesn't, in and of itself, mean that the fifty-FIRST time you're right...

This Leuders fellow could STILL be a hypocrite AND an advocate of free speech, Denver...

Are you his lover/son/sycopant? Being hypocritcal, at least in this instance, doesn't mean he is a total wash-out, you know. Criticism is a part of life, YOU might want to learn how to deal with it, when you or someone you love has been criticized.

So, in response to Meade's comment: this is why I find it puzzling that I read so much here about liberals this and liberals that. Dose it include you, Meade? The conservative liberal? Of course not. Me? Probably more so. Even as, a few weeks back, I described myself to someone (who reads this blog, n.b.) as a "fiscally conservative liberal." Yet, I do believe Meade and I have voted 100% differently in the last several elections. (I would, for example, never say "I miss Bush").

Yet I read comments here about liberal tards this and self important big government paternalistic anti personal liberties that and I just don't get it. Where do you come up with all of this?

A P.S. -- Meade, we're thrilled that you'll join the Ice Age Trail volunteers. There is not a more beautiful path to hike in the entire Midwest than this one. (I hope you are also a supporter of the newly proposed DNR rule NR 1.29 especially as it proposes to modify the NR 45.10 Dispersed camping provision. I know, I know -- government stuff! But imagine -- being able to put up a tent along the trail and watching the sun rise in the Wisconsin wilderness... Bliss... And it's not nearly as radical as that liberal? conservative? neither? Scotland, which, in 2003 passed a law that permitted anyone to pitch a tent anywhere overnight, so long as they were respectful of the privacy of the landowner. We took advantage of it a year ago -- free, free in the way that is beyond fantastic -- to experience the exquisite beauty of nature, along any footpath, any trail that appealed to us.)

Anyway, labels are divisive. They discourage conversation. Too few "liberals," conservative or otherwise, participate here. I keep reading comments, hoping to hear that back and forth, but I read mostly that liberals are turds and paternalistic and dumb and contemptuous and clueless and on and on and on. My friends will ask -- why do you read that stuff?

I don't have a good answer. It's like subjecting yourself to some pointless lashing, not because you think you did something wrong, but because you want to understand why your self professed enemies hate you so.

Anyway, labels are divisive. They discourage conversation. Too few "liberals," conservative or otherwise, participate here. I keep reading comments, hoping to hear that back and forth, but I read mostly that liberals are turds and paternalistic and dumb and contemptuous and clueless and on and on and on. My friends will ask -- why do you read that stuff?

You mean you and your lefty friends will all have a chuckle while you demonize the conservatives on Althouse. Nice, libtard.

I think that only very lately does Althouse seem to have come over to the conservative side of issues. I've always considered her a liberal at heart and (like many "conservatives") certainly a classical liberal.

But if there is something particularly right-wing about the culture here I think that it's probably got it's genesis in the expulsion of Prof Althouse from the liberal plantation for failing to think properly about the war.

Just my opinion from hanging around for longer than I really want to admit.

The condecention just drips off of Nina. She writes as if she is just smarter and more fair minded than us narrow minded hillbillies. We have heard it all before Nina. You are welcome to take your fake concern and shove it.

Nina, my observation is that the main difference between liberals and conservatives is their view on the proper role of government (at all levels - federal, state, local) in our lives. Liberals want more; conservatives want less.

Liberals believe that government is good, and that since many people are incapable of running their own lives, government should be large and intrusive in people's lives, "for their own good." They also believe that life is essentially unfair, that certain minority groups have been (and will ALWAYS BE) victimized, and that government's proper role is to take from the wealthy and give to the needy.

Conservatives are more suspicious of government, believing that it should be strictly limited to its constitutional roles. They oppose government intrusion in their lives, believing that they know better how they should pursue happiness than some far-away bureaucrat. They prefer that private enterprise do those things that do not legitimately fall under the proper role of government. They believe in supporting community organizations and private charity to help the needy rather than expanding government welfare programs.

This is not to say that liberals aren't charitable as well, although most studies show that conservatives give more generously.

I do not comment here (for the most part) because 90% of your commenters are on one side of the issue. Those who present a different position are ridiculed and slandered for their professed idea, even if it is offered without aggression or insult. It's not a place to go to for a back and forth. And that's okay. I understand the need to have a place where like minded people find solidarity and support. But it's not okay for those who may want to say something outside of the Althouse mainstream.

nina has to be a left-winger. Because only a leftie would come to Althouse, scan the comments and conclude that 90% are all on the right-wing page. Basically nina's left-wing filter can't tell the differences between ultra-right wing and moderates. If it aint left-wing then it's ALL Reichwingers.

As Glenn Beck and Jonah Goldberg and others have point out lately, modern day Liberals are nothing more than the spiritual descendants of Fabian Socialists and American Progressives. Those movements were founded on the idea that an enlightened elite had to care for the dregs of society (everyone who wasn't a member of their little clubs) and taking control of the government to further things like Eugenics were absolutely righteous. Their tactics may have changed slightly, the vocabulary has changed greatly, but their ultimate goals are still there.

Liberal politicians base their election/re-election hopes on the turnout of 3 main groups. 18-25 year olds, African-Americans, and Latino-Americans. They don't go for all minorities - remember Rep. Sanchez and her video ranting against the Asian-American running for her seat.

Those 3 groups are typically the least educated and experienced groups in American Politics. The 18-25 year olds get their knowledge from Colbert/Stewart. [My liberal speech professor would say that the brain isn't wired correctly until at least 25 years of age.] The African- and Latino- Americans have significantly higher drop-out rates than 'White' Americans (who are significantly worse than Asian-Americans).

If liberalism is so great and smart - why is the turn-out of the uneducated and unwise so important for it to survive?

Of course anyone who posts here would have seen multiple examples of conservatives calling libtards stupid, commie etc so the verbal over-sight goes both ways

Not really. You need to understand the context. I frequently call our Lefty trolls here "libtards", but only as pushback for their frequent use of term "redneck" and "teabagger". It checks them. And separates them from the true lefties for which liberalism is not merely a brand or tribe.

Those liberals, the few here who present arguments in good faith, I respond to politely, regardless of how "stupid" I think their ideas are. Sometimes I even learn from them. Sometimes they even convince me to change my position (as with gay marriage).

I think you'll discover that is what draws conservative readership to Ann Althouse. Its not that she shares our beliefs, its that this is one of the few liberal venues where we can have an exchange with a liberal without her resorting to the same old "racist sexist homophobe!" tripe.

It also helps that Ann is a champion of free-speech. Most the liberal blogs I visit will delete you for making an argument they can't handle.

Nina, the game here is that all these conservatives gathered here -united by Ann, are nuanced and cruelly neutral-that's what they will tell you. Ann is not a conservative[!], play along wont you? I like to spar with the regs here, sometimes they are polite, sometimes they just rely on name calling to prove their points.Somehow they believe that they are not conservative,or Republican, but I routinely get called a libtard.Never been called that by a Dem or a true Independent.

Nina: Too few "liberals," conservative or otherwise, participate here. I keep reading comments, hoping to hear that back and forth, but I read mostly that liberals are turds and paternalistic and dumb and contemptuous and clueless and on and on and on. My friends will ask -- why do you read that stuff?

That last is interesting. Do you realize that we have Lefty Trolls visiting just to spike the blog?

By spiking, I mean that honest liberals and conservatives here will be having a back-and-forth discussion about some issue that is an interesting read.

But the hard left can't have that -someone might stray from the commune. So someone from Pandagon or HuffPo, still nursing a grude over Amanda Marcotte, drives by and starts flinging poo and deliberately attempts to spike the conversation, turn it into a hate-fest that no one wants to read.

So I find you comments ironic. Yes, the labels are divisive. Yes, it disrupts any attempt at understanding the other side.

And Yes, its deliberately done by the people on your side of the aisle. We even have psots from them admitting (when they get too cocky).